March is Women's History Month - Celebrate Women of
Achievement and Herstory - Episode #22 in the special
History Month 2000 observance series
By Irene Stuber
Not the Sex but the Ability
Lydia Maria Adams DeWitt (b. 02-01-1859) was an
American experimental pathologist whose experiments led to the
development of tuberculosis treatment. LMD taught at a number of
universities including University of Chicago (1912-26).
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Event 02-02-1995 - Wearing a scarf that belonged to Amelia
Earhart and carrying the pilot's license of early endurance flight
champion Bobbi Trout, Lt. Colonel Eileen Collins, 38, lifted
off from Cape Canaveral in the co-pilot's seat as the first
woman to pilot an American space craft.
She also carried items belonging to members of the
Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II and items
from the women who applied and passed initial tests in NASA's
Mercury program.
An Air Force test pilot, she was selected for the NASA
space program in 1990, the first woman chosen as a space
shuttle pilot. Eighteen of NASA's astronauts are women serving
in scientific roles.
Personally invited by Collins (not NASA) to witness the
blastoff were some of the women who tried out for the initial
Mercury program in the 1950s, who did exceptionally well
(better than the men), and then were turned down because -
shock! - they were women!
In June 1963, Valentina Terreshkova, Soviet cosmonaut
became the first woman in space. She manually controlled
Vostok-6 during parts of the 70.8-hour flight through 48 orbits
of earth.
The first American woman in space was Sally Ride,
who used the shuttle robot arm to release and retrieve satellites.
The first American woman to perform a spacewalk was
Kathryn Sullivan, who practiced techniques for refueling
satellites, and Kathryn Thorntorn went outside the shuttle to
assist the repair of the Hubble Space telescope.
The first women to die in space were Judith Resnick,
the second American woman in space, and Christa McAuliffe,
the first civilian when Challenger exploded shortly after launch
at Cape Canaveral, FL, 01-28-1986.
Fast forward to 07-23-1999 - Five seconds into launch,
warning alarms almost drowned out the roaring rockets of the
space ship Columbia.
An electrical short had knocked out the primary
computers for two of the Columbia's engines. Fortunately, the
backup computers kicked in without a hitch.
But the electrical alarm hid a more serious problem.
Fuel cells were leaking during the eight minute flight to orbit. It
forced a lower orbit and the flight was close to being forced
into a never before performed emergency landing.
Even though the crowd on the beaches along Florida's
coast - this author among them - didn't know what was
happening in that small reddish-orange tail of burning fuel that
lifted the spacecraft into orbit, there was a singular unease as if
they knew something was wrong.
But the resolve and competence of the 42-year-old Air
Force colonel at the controls never flickered. The captain's
voice was strong, confident, and resolute in the reports to
Houston.
And the resolution proved once and for all (will popular
media and HIStorians please note) that it is not the sexes of the
people in any given situation that counts, but the individual's
ability to perform.
And Colonel Eileen Collins, the first woman to captain
a spacecraft, performed perfectly.
She captained without hesitation through the difficulties
and she and her four person crew completed the full five day
mission that launched NASA's $1.5 billion Chandra X-ray
Observatory on a five-year mission to search for black holes
and scrutinize galaxies and quasars.
NASA's first space mission commanded by a woman
Air Force Colonel Eileen Collins blasted off from Cape
Canaveral in a rare night takeoff (12:26 am) and ended five
days later (07-27-99) in a rarer night time landing (11:20 pm).
On 07-24-99, mission specialist Catherine "Cady"
Coleman was in charge of efforts to successfully deploy the
Chandra X-ray Observatory and did most of the delicate
deployment herself.
Quotes du jour
"I'll be back," vowed the first American woman astronaut pilot
to her hometown of Elmira, New York, as her appearance in an
April, 1995 triumphant
parade before 20,000 of her hometown neighbors was
cancelled by NASA officials following a second death threat.
Elmira citizens held the parade anyway and were incensed, as
one columnist in the local newspaper said, "We were robbed -
cruelly, callously, thoughtlessly, robbed ... of a chance to
celebrate how a little girl who once lived on welfare in Elmira
could grow up to lead humankind on one of its greatest
adventures.
"Robbed of the opportunity to show Eileen Collins how proud
we are of her and how much she means to us."
"There's no sound reason why women, if they have the time and
ability, shouldn't sit with men on city councils, in state legislatures,
or in the House and Senate . . . Women are essentially practical
because they've always had to be. From the dawn of time it's been
our job to see that both ends meet. And women are much more
realistic than men, particularly when it comes to public questions. Of
course, having had the vote for such a short time is a distinct
advantage, for we have no inheritance of political buncombe."
--Hattie W. Caraway.
^ W ^ O^ A ^
Don't let anyone tell you there weren't notable and effective
women throughout history. They were always there but
because historians failed to note women's accomplishments in
their HIStories, each woman of each generation has had to
reinvent herself. Spread the word of women's accomplishments.
It is time to undelete our past.
^ W ^ O^ A ^
Copyright 2000 by Irene Stuber. More than 20,000 women's
biographies and thousands of facts of herstory have been
gathered by istuber and used in the more than 900 episodes of
Women of Achievement and Herstory that have been emailed
to subscribers over the past ten years. She is in the process of
slowly uploaded them to the WiiN our website:
. As always, copies of all of istuber's
writings about women work may be distributed freely for
educational purposes if the copyright is observed and the
articles remain unchanged. (Acknowledging her as author is
appreciated.)
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